Well, thank fuck for that.

Thank sweet baby Jesus that someone at the Council, even if it was just on the flip of a coin, made the right choice. The opinions of local people overriding the profit margin of a construction giant? You don’t see that every day. I’m sure George Wimpey Ltd and all their subcontractors are quietly weeping this morning at the loss of a few shekels, but let’s consider it from an aesthetic point of view.

What sort of fucking idiot could possibly look around the city – at the likes of Cale Cross House or the Bewick Court flats, both so fucking pig-awful that they had to reclad them in the colour of our dreary leaden skies as camouflage - and think “You know, what this panorama needs is MORE skyscrapers…”? Newcastle needs more tall buildings like I need another haemorrhoid.

How the hell could Wimpey lay any claims to respecting the sensitivity of the area in their discussions with local residents, yet simultaneously propose a design about as sensitive and appropriate as Vic Reeves at a child’s funeral? The fucking hubris of it leaves me speechless. Was the tower a way for the planners to make their mark on the skyline? Fuck me, T Dan Smith must have been wanking in his grave.

I’m not denying that the land is in dire need of development. A vast expanse of gravel and weeds is not what I’d call foreground interest when I’m out with the camera and the wide-angle lens. But I fail to see how 13 storeys of kiss-my-arse could ever be the answer. Nobody would dispute that there is a piece missing from the jigsaw, but a child of four could tell you that you’re supposed to find the right bit, no matter how far you have to reach down the back of the settee. It’s no good getting the family dog to do its business in the remaining space; “completed” it might be, but it’s still a pile of steaming shite.

Clearly reading straight from the Self Righteousness For Dummies textbook, there has been the argument from the designers that tower would give the Quayside a focal point. Aye, that would be right. A hideous corporate folly, another semi-occupied eyesore that nobody – apart from the cloth-eared, arrogant fuckholes who stand to make a killing – could ever want. That would be a focal point alright, an icon not just of the Quayside but of the “new” Newcastle as it is rapidly becoming.

And English Heritage want shagging, they really do. Is that what they see as being acceptable for this once-proud nation? An endless sweep of architectural tumours, all two-tone brick and traffic-blinding glass. Interchangeable buildings in interchangeable towns, full of the same imbeciles ordering the same lattès from the same sleazy megabrands. Is that our fucking heritage?

Of all the possible attractions that could be sited there to further regenerate the area, some fucking arseclown decides that turning the city into Milton Keynes upon Tyne is the way to carry on. Imagine a family-of-four on a day out to Newcastle. Imagine the words of wisdom that will be passed on to the wide-eyed children. “Let’s go along the Quayside and have a look at the real estate. Work hard at your sums and one day you could be enough of a cunt to have a weekend apartment there.”

People talk about Generation Fuck You as if it’s just some spotty little twat in a hooded top who won’t tidy his room. Hardly. The red-faced blockhead in the suit is equally culpable. “Don’t wage illegal wars in my name”? Fuck You. “Don’t give me middle management with a clipboard when all I need is a nurse”? Fuck You. “And don’t desecrate our area so you can line your own pockets”? Fuck. You.

The filthy lucre is what it all comes down to, inevitably. What better way to feather your nest than by taking the best view in Newcastle – historically free to all – and blocking it off, carving it up and flogging it to the highest fucking bidder? What’s most insulting is that they seemed surprised that there was a rumpus. They appeared flabbergasted that the locals became a wee bit Angry Shevchenko.

And aside from the fact that it was planned for completely the wrong place, it wasn’t even close to being an attractive design. Nice one there, lads. A university education, a passion for the trade, several years of training, a wealth of history to draw upon, and the best you can manage is another fucking high-rise box. But hey, cheer up. At least it’s another one for the portfolio, another hundredweight of A4 paper to drop on the next poor sods to be lumbered with your impositions. And think of it this way: better to keep it all nicely packaged in the corner of your office as a shattered dream, than suffer the indignity of seeing the fucking thing demolished in your lifetime.

Of course, we can only speculate on what finally made the Council see straight and chuck the plans in the bin. But a large amount of the credit for forcing Town Hall into such an astonishing U-turn – hands up who thought it was a foregone conclusion – must go to celebrity North East couple Tim Healy and Denise Welch, and their impassioned pleas on ITV’s Britain’s Best View. The view from the Free Trade might not have taken the title, but if its appearance before a high-ranking councillor sat with a bottle of Merlot on a Sunday night, grumbling and cussing about another impending week with “those cunts in the office”, did anything to curry favour, then we must be forever in their debt.

Who’d have thought that they would be the ones to pull it off? Formerly our objects of ridicule, and seen as being nowt but a funny-looking pair with fewer tricks than the pony who’s typing this, in the Dog’s eyes they’re now the gods of all religions rolled into one.

Let’s raise a glass to them and to the most astounding display of common sense the city of Newcastle upon Tyne has seen in many a moon, but let’s also remember where we put the beer towel should the fuckers at Wimpey start their appeal.

And if any appeal succeeds and the tower starts to take shape, or something else equally monstrous muscles in to take its place, what then? Fuck knows.

But I have got a mate who works for Al Qaeda. He’s just temping, like - covering maternity - but he might be able to pull a few strings.

I wonder if they do requests…